What is terrorism? Blowing up kids in Manchester? Bombing innocent Palestinian civilians ?

What is terrorism?  Can it ever be morally justified? Is there justified or unjustified terrorism?  Do the ends justify the means? In the world of politics , definitions, labels are fluid and invariably embedded in  political intention. Today’s label is not necessarily tomorrows. However, according to the dictionary  “terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion or the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal’.
 
The key word here is ‘political goal ‘.  Right wing organisations like the English Defence league are opposed to the spread of Islam in the UK as it ‘challenges an English Christian way of life’.  Much like ISIS ideology   that espouses an Islamic Caliphate. Its tactic is  terrorising anyone or thing that hinders that  goal. The Zionist movement understood the methodology  and power of terrorism to gain  political aspirations and used it to a devastating effect to create the State of Israel. Israel sees no moral dilemma in its creation method and occupation  as the end for them ,  justifies the means. Its  of no consequence to Israel that it dispossessed the Palestinians whose land it was and who physically were living and had been living there for hundreds of years .
 
Modern terrorism  as we understand it today is  the ‘act of violence toward civilians in order to frighten and persuade’, began with Jewish terrorism  in Palestine initially against the British army that was in the 1940’s a protectorate of Palestine.

Terrorists Acts of Irgun, Palmach the Lehi and Haganah   were  systematic. A deliberate policy of terrorising was adopted as a political tool by the Zionist movement . The British referred to these groups as terrorist organizations . Subsequently some of these terrorists became leaders of what became Israel in 1948, thus affirming the cliché ‘today’s terrorist tomorrows freedom fighter’.  
 
The UK  did not appear to have any moral dilemma about receiving as Heads of State those they had labelled previously  as terrorist.  Its about perceptions and political agendas of the time. Perversely when the Palestinians began their struggle and fight for their land or part of their land they received no acknowledgment of their rights or more succinctly their rights under International law. The PLO were labelled as terrorists. They were not entitled to liberate themselves from occupation.
 
As a Palestinian growing up in the UK I felt marginalised  and confused. This was the height of Palestinian  struggle  for international recognition of our cause. The PLO became synonymous with ‘terrorism’ . From the infamous Munich killing of 12 Israeli  athletes by Black September at the summer Olympics in Germany 1972 to plane hi –jacking. I remember meeting Leila Khalid a heroine for many Palestinians and being castigated in England for meeting a ‘terrorist’.
 
 For me this raises the  question of  the West terminology  perception and interpretation  of what terrorism is and is not.
 
The US and the UK do not perceive the occupation of Palestine and the daily arbitrary arrests and ex-judicial killings  of Palestinians as terrorism .  Yet I fail to understand how they can morally defend or reconcile  the right of one people over  the other.   Israel’s  creation in 1948 on Palestine and the mass ethnic cleansing that took place, the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, the theft of land and homes, the continued occupation is terrorism on the biggest scale . There is nothing grey about it its clear. This was and is terrorism.  Both morally and factually.
 
As was the US bombing of Libya on the 15 April 1986 that killed  civilians dismissed by the US at the time as ‘collateral damage’ bland political speak  words that ignore  the reality that innocent people died. Amongst the dead was my  young cousin Rafaat who was buried in the rubble that fateful night. Her   sister  Kinda 5 years old at the time  survived wrapped in her fathers arms as the walls of their house came tumbling about them .
 
The US planes took off from the UK but were denied flight rights by France , Spain and Italy.  While ostensibly the US attack  was in response to the massacre  by Libyan agents of a nightclub in  West Berlin that killed three people including  US servicemen a few days earlier on the 5th of April,  the  more credible reason  had more to do with US fears that Libya was  attempting to start a nuclear programme.

The BBC claimed there was a 100 civilians dead. The US President at the time, Ronald Regan claimed they were targeting military sites . The Americans claimed it was ‘their right’ to self defence under UN charter  article 51. This was supported by the late  British Prime Minister  Margaret Thatcher .
 
Raafat's father, Bassam Al Ghussein spent years and years lobbying  to the US government to get some acknowledgment of Raafat's  wrongful death . All to no avail. The pain that enveloped the family for the ensuing years  is unimaginable compounded by a total refusal of the US to offer an apology and admission., Raafats young life was cut short by terrorism and what we understand as terrorism.  It was a direct result of  an illegal bombing for political goals by the US  yet  is not classified as an act of terrorism? Why ? How can you justify the killing of any  child be it in Manchester, Palestine Libya or anywhere. Why is one called terrorism , one collateral damage and one self defence and or security?

Is it ok to terrorise when you want to free yourself from colonial or oppressive rule? But not under occupation? When does one transition from being a terrorist to an iconic symbol for the struggle of ending a deplorable apartheid regime?
 
Morally it is as indefensible to support  apartheid, occupation, colonialism  as it is morally indefensible to support the killing of innocents for a religious flag be it  Judaism , Islam,  or Christianity.